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		INDEX interactive
	§ I	Prologue
	§ II	Note on the absence of foot notes
	§ III	'Utopia' as a political word
	§ IV	Introduction to a new logic
	§ V	Utopia and religions
	§ VI	Utopia and communist history
	§ VII	On the future of capitalism
	§ VIII	Antagonism and revolution
	§ IX	Women as a class and non-class
	§ X	Christ and women
	§ XI	Political disengagement and ideological
	§ XII	The anthropological separation
	§ XIII	The territorial division
	§ XIV	The society of demand
	§ XV	The utopian spiritual co-ordinates
	§ XVI	The mobility of the couple
	§ XVII	The immoveables infrastructure
	§ XVIII	On the utopian democracy
	§ XIX	for utopian library
	§ XX	On the research method
	§XXI	The utopian joint-stock company
	§ XXII	The year to come
	§ XXIII	Epilogue

§ I. Prologue

N
ow the era of prophecies has ended, it is time to approach the sphere of project. It is time to stop producing empty elucubrations on what the future may bring, and to begin designing systems of life which represent political hypotheses capable of promoting a social system that would make existence fascinating and enjoyable for women and men on Earth. Those who do not believe it is possible to approach a similar planning enterprise have already done away with their own lives and those of future generations, since the rejection of revolution implies a basic rejection of the demand for happiness. Nevertheless, such a difficult enterprise is only possible if it is paralleled by a radical transformation of current modes of thought. Therefore, only if it is capable of freeing itself from the "market" dogma, learning to conjugate the usefulness of love. In order to sail within this unexplored dimension, defining a new logic understood as "relativity of the positive" will hence be necessary. So to allow the muscle of thought to move people and things with an instinctual reflex which is consistent and "natural" in relation to the new political structure. It is, however, all too clear that the present historical condition does not consent a foreseeable hypothesising on the beginning of the utopian process. Unfortunately, no revolutionary drive which may represent the announcement of an epiphany stirs the air today. At the time of Christ the event was already in the air, strengthened by every presage. As it was before 1848, when the "spectre" of the proletariat haunted Europe. Currently, on the other hand, nothing (or more precisely nothing that is strictly quantifiable) pre-announces a demand for Utopia, which is perhaps present within some merely as a mental need.
In order to give life to a new political proposal, one cannot but start with prefiguring a social system where all contradictions tend to be cancelled out. It will be a matter of realising what those who are depressed believe to be unrealisable, avoiding, at the same time, running aground on the improbable. In order to put the train of the new event into gear, it is nevertheless essential, at this point in time, to indicate with the maximum possible "visual" clarity all the elements which will determine the functioning of the society we intend to outline. A society which is "necessarily" structured with no social classes, no private property of the means of production, no money, market, or monogamic family, and where even democracy would no longer be regulated by delegate representatives of the parliamentary type. Yet, it would not merely represent an overturning of the capitalist model. For it must be the content of the new to exclude the old, and not the old to build a cage around the future. The offensive (anti-capitalistic) moment is almost redundant from this point of view, what counts is on the other hand the moment of proposal which would, with its seductive drive, overcome and, once it has done so, surpass capitalism. The analysis of current political events will, naturally, also be omitted, as it is now generally used only as a means to chase the moves of any given opposition. The proposal that will emerge will function not only as an "incitement to the desire for Utopia", but also as a stimulation for the re-opening of a political confrontation of strategic significance, which has for too long been hibernated. Once the conditions are determined, it will hence be possible to build a strong network for international research towards the drafting of a Utopian Manifesto. With no doubt, the Project could not be compatible with the current way of being of the whole human species: whether it is those who prefer society's division by class, as a means to maintaining their powerful role intact, or those who, after all, like their subordinate condition. It is hoped, nevertheless, that the realisation of Utopia will be the fruit of a painless process, although such a possibility has to be regarded as highly improbable. For this reason, being willing to be held responsible for any possible anthropological separation is a pre-requisite.

Although the theorisation of communism has found expression within an endless number of pages, there have so far been very few hints to the concrete form of a society built according to its terms. The practical and theoretical poverty of the so-called real socialist States is, of course, not worth taking into account, since it is totally alien to the contents of Utopia. On the contrary, those experiences have wrapped the idea of communism itself within a ghostly grey aura. Yet, perhaps this research has already crossed over the etymological boundaries of that term.
If Christianity has fed itself on the insuppressibility of contradiction (starting from the good/evil antithesis), communism, which should have led to the overcoming of all contradictions, has not even been able to eliminate that between its principles and the "transition model". From a methodological point of view, the interpretation of history as class struggle can certainly be regarded as correct. Nevertheless, one cannot avoid stressing that the designation of the industrial proletariat as revolutionary subject has in fact impeded the construction of a communist utopia. An economic class has, in other words, been associated with a still undefined political project, resulting in the generation of an erroneous link between the class of labour and that of the mind. Although it is a class born out of bourgeois relationships of production, and although it has all the requisites for being the bourgeoisie's antagonist, the proletariat, in fact, lacks the true revolutionary dimension, which consists of being the bearer of a different conception of "entire life". The detachment from the Marxist implant is therefore the necessary condition to attempt a displacement of the demand for communism from the position of opposition to capitalism to that of utopian consonance. The abrogation of private property, for example, will no longer represent a form of historical retaliation (expropriation of the expropriators), but it will rather correspond to a new proposal, which will become a guarantee for the freedom of individual demand. Too often, instead, the "awaited society" has been traced on the canvas of the antagonist class. When, in fact, it was solely the "vacuum" in the sphere of project to determine the shape of the new society as an automatic effect of overturning the previous one. On the other hand, the idyllic Utopian dream can only be fulfilled through a "leap into the full", an invention of the mind that consents the overcoming of the limits and inconsistencies of the logic of nature, and goes towards social love.

So far, the only theory that has appropriated love as a political practice is the one elaborated by Dr. Christ who, though acting in good faith, has turned his ethics into the largest operation for social mediation. He has indeed succeeded in maintaining the unity of a society divided into classes, making use of such a praxis to effectively cement all contradictions. After all this was the only way to exclude social equality from the calculation of the love-determining factors. Love, hence, becoming a neutral concept, adaptable to all uses. An arduous but yet essential task, therefore, will be that of exposing the inadequacies of the Christian proposal. Certainly not to relish the mourning for the death of a god, but rather to build a superior doctrine, a true love among equals. Where equality is intended as the free determination of many "I"s, nonetheless all different from one another. Love is not, of course, merely a sentimental or erotic emotion. It is indeed the true protagonist of the Utopian Project. Its inherent problems are a politically integrating part of the invention of a new social organisation that will feed from and live on its spiritual energy.

§ II. Note on the absence of footnotes

A
ny "respectable" text is equipped with bibliographical footnotes. I exempt myself from this, mainly for three reasons. The first is that I intend to give these pages a deliberate anti-academic cut. Secondly, I am not interested in separating my own original thought from that of others, aware as I am that often my elaboration uses ideas which lack any specific fatherhood. Or motherhood, as in the case of feminism. The third and final reason is that I am far more interested in the development of a thought, than in the reconstruction of its genealogical tree. Hence, in this way, the bourgeois "copyright" dissolves itself. In a way which I do not hesitate to define as "prefigurative", especially in relation to how the job of researching will be intended as a collective effort. To confirm what has been said, I find no difficulty in declaring that the content of this text has, in some way, "almost entirely" been written and thought by others before. Every now and again, anyhow, I will take the liberty of quoting certain passages with the (official) author's name, as I do not even adopt the non-production of bibliographical references as an absolute rule.

§ III. Utopia as a political word

A
s a political demand, utopia belongs to neither the cultural area of tradition nor that of reformism. In fact, the etymology of the term (from the Greek ou-tópos, place that does not exist) already contains a precise ideological connotation, presenting its own content as being historically unfeasible, and hence denying it. The restrictions of its formulation are, however, only one explanation for the fact that utopists have so far proceeded in reverse. Another one is to be linked with their own inability to produce a scientific analysis of society, lacking, as they were, the adequate methodological co-ordinates. Even though their "dreams" were imbued with libertarian and egalitarian ideals, those utopists succeeded, thanks exclusively to the seductive quality of their stories, in eclipsing the permanence of class divisions (such as the philosopher-priests/farmers dualism). It is not a coincidence, therefore, if we find within those fairy-like imaginations the same contradictions they intended to move away from. Furthermore, it has been pointed out that utopia is nothing but the laic translation of the religious idea of Eden, conceived within Western culture.
Although paradise (on Earth) has been located in a secluded and inaccessible place on the planet, almost always of circular shape, closed and separated by a large section of the ocean, the production of religious imagery has, as a matter of fact, been far richer in utopian terms than what has been left by laic utopists. In literary or pictorial representations Eden is always described as a place where material goods are abundant (industrial revolution) and happiness prevails (logic of the positive). Private property obviously does not exist, as everyone can have everything he/she desires (society of demand).

To gain access to it, moreover, one needs an exceptional passport, an angelic guide (revolutionary class), and hence not everyone is allowed in (anthropological separation). Yet, if one wants to find a place for Eden within history, one needs to replace literature with political science. Hence, stretching one's imagination further than any religion can, one will need to be capable of translating the dream into rational terms. Therefore, the term "Utopia" is hereby divorced from any literary reference, whether religious or laic, to the subject. It is, nevertheless, politically convenient to continue using such a term, seen as the word communism, far more appropriate to express the Project intended to be outlined, has been totally disfigured and stripped of its utopian value by the theory and history of those party-States that have claimed to speak on its behalf. It is appropriate, in the meantime, to establish a couple of preliminary conditions which are essential to the configuration of Utopia:
1) that it becomes unrealisable whenever it is introduced in a non-utopian context;
2) that it cannot be parcelled out, in the sense that none of its moments can be de-contextualised from the entire process. It is, moreover, necessary to disprove the current opinion according to which utopia is beautiful but yet unrealisable. Such a commonplace derives mainly from a centuries-old resignation to the non-beautiful, in other words from the belief that it is impossible to build a place where every dimension of life is in equilibrium with the others, so to realise a unity between the beautiful as form and ecstasy as content. Utopia will, nevertheless, only be referred to against the background of modern technology, as any reproposal of primitive communism would be regressive and puerile. Yet, technology alone, although being the only means by which man is freed from the slavery of repetitive labour, represents neither the condition for nor the horizon of the liberation of humankind. Vain are the efforts of prehistory lovers who search amongst the remote past hoping to find archaeological evidence of a utopian sign. If anyone needs to feel reassured or is in search for a pretext or authorisation to believe, they may as well know now that history has never offered anything similar to a Utopian Society. The final result of the communes, for example, Christian ones in particular, which were built around welfare solidarity, was to ensure every person had the minimum necessary for survival. As a result this stands in a diametrically opposed position to that of the Project we intend to present. In the absence of classes to comfort, poor people to aid, contradictions to rectify, the motives of that mutual assistance, orientated towards alleviating the state of affliction with the tears of comfort, will indeed collapse. This is not to suggest that only tears of joy will exist in the Utopian Society, but to stress that there will certainly no longer be suffering related to disadvantaged class conditions and, as a consequence, the current "strategic" function of solidarity will be dissolved.

It will, obviously, be more difficult for the faithful heirs of those who refused to observe the physical conformation of stars through the Galilean telescope to grasp, with their mind's eyes, the not yet material worlds that will be portrayed here. And from them will undoubtedly, but not exclusively, spring out accusations of our preaching the sinful moral of the forbidden fruits. Yet, once they have been tasted and digested, it will be these "apples" (of a new morality) that will open the doors to the garden of Eden, through which no one has truly ever walked. Meanwhile, the unbelievers can invoke the mists of insanity. Let them! For, without a dose of fury, excitement, and enthusiasm of the reason, there will never be enough "strength" to activate the Event of the new Era.

§ IV. Introduction to a new logic

A
logic represents an invisible track that guarantees the coherence of a given "strategic point of view". A political proposal claiming to revolutionise people and things without relying on a new logic would, therefore, be pointless, as history would continue to proceed along the axis of the old logic.
"... Marx obtains the greatest results through applying the logical law of nature... [that] in each step reveals itself as a universal intelligence". "Who will want to deny the admirable order of natural phenomena, their harmony, organisation or systematic character?" The above two extracts are quoted from Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks. Yet the second one, which represents the greatest of all commonplaces, could have been written by anyone. Nevertheless, it is not sufficient to be enchanted by the scenic effect of the cosmic order, as a means for recognising the oneness and universality of "nature's logic law". If for no other reason, because this law is a "technical mechanism" for self-conservation and is, hence, totally indifferent to the demand for "social and moral order" present in human society. If a river was to flood and destroy everything it came across, then that would not be the outcome of its malice, since malice is a moral disvalue of which nature has no notion. The same can be applied to animals' survival, which is often associated with the idea of systematically killing other beings, or even with the predominant appointment of the male to the hierarchical role of gang leader. An interpretation of the "logic of nature" according to the socio-ethical set of values would, therefore, lead to the erroneous conclusion that nature is classist and sexist. Yet, that "first oversight" has affected almost the whole progression of philosophical thought. For which reason, once the mechanism of the "world of things" has been superimposed to that of the "world of humans", the non-sin of nature has (physiologically) become the structural and "original sin" of humanity. And as evil has been seen as an integral and substantial part of nature, it has become extra-logical to man as well. Being aware of the conflict between the natural order and the moral order, the literature on the subject of paradise has, therefore, designed the perfect world by breaking the rules of animal nature, so that "...the most diverse animals, among which lions and lambs, deer and rabbits [live] together, without any beast carrying poison or offence,... but rather being prodigious, useful and obedient". Hence, the power of the paradisiac allegory rests in the idealisation of a peaceful world. Yet if such imagery became reality, several animal species would be destined to extinction in a very short time, and nature would completely change its aspect. The evident antinomy should have been taken as an advice to keep the logic of nature separate, and hence not to apply it to the human world. But it was not. By assuming the existence of a "universal logical system", laic thought has ended up concluding that political contradictions are not eliminable.

Christian thought, on the other hand, having situated the "origin of evil" before man's appearance on Earth, has rendered sin extra-historical. Therefore, the "singleness of logic" on one hand and the "extra-historicity" of sin on the other have obstructed the entrance to a different dimension of thought. Anyone who, before Einstein, may have even only presumed the "simultaneous" existence of different general theories, each (within its own frame of reference) valid for the whole universe, would have been labelled insane. But even when Einstein demonstrated that Relativity rather than Unicity was the rule in the "universal system", such an assertion, although revolutionary in the scientific field, did not produce a parallel logical revolution within the sphere of philosophy. A "second logic", in other words, was never conceived. One that would not only sail in synchrony with the spiritual content of Utopia, but that would also have an "essence" capable of determining concrete action. The most immediate illustration of this may arise from the comparison between physics and philosophy. While all phenomena were explained, within the field of physics, in terms of "classical mechanics", an "absolute and universal validity" was attributed to its principles. Yet, when that science was no longer able to define certain phenomena, rendered "visible" by the discovery of the "electromagnetic field", new general theories (i.e. Relativity and Quantum theory) arose, finding solutions to previously unsolvable problems. As far as logic is concerned, it is now a case of building (or discovering) one that differs from that of contradiction. Maintaining, of course, that the latter responds well to old and new problems surrounding a class-based society. Speaking of more than one logic means, therefore, that the existence of more than one truth, each valid within its circle of reference, is possible. Before proceeding with the formulation of a new logic, nevertheless, it is necessary to set up, even if briefly, a confrontation with the Marxist point of view. Especially as some of the "deadly sins" of historical communism were born out of a series of mistakes due to Marx's theoretical approach. Firstly, it needs to be stressed that, in spite of his intentions to overturn Hegel's logic, Marx has remained profoundly Hegelian. In other words, that turning ("on its head"), involving the whole body of that logical system, has in fact substantially preserved the integrity of its structure. Indeed, that process, though moving the Hegelian starting point from thesis to antithesis, still preserves the claim to affirm through denying. The principle of antinomy, which is the exact opposite of communist utopia, is therefore re-applied. The classless society, on the other hand, presupposes an end to negativity or, even, a possibility of wiping out all the contradictions of existence or, in other words, of emancipating itself from the dialectic of contradiction. It is true that the communist intellectuals were searching for a logical system that would provide them with the philosophical key to exit from capitalism, and it is also true that the overturning of the Hegelian dialectic would have made it possible to trigger such an escape. Yet, it is also true that the "new" society still operates within the "dialectic triad of contradiction" and, hence, without the utopian condition.

The Hegelian logic and its ethical co-ordinates, nevertheless, still today preserve their actuality, since every position can only be surpassed through the negating of negation, seen as contemporary history predominantly operates within the reference area of class struggle and, hence, of the contradiction deriving from class hatred (extra-logical negativity). Besides, if Hegel claimed that "thought is subordinate to the existence of the real, as the real is its foundation and the guide of history", and history has so far been marked by contradiction, then it must not be surprising if Hegel himself (and not exclusively him) has promptly granted that logic "universal legitimacy". A logic that seemed to offer, in addition, the advantage of not leaving anything out, so that what "had to be has been, what has been had to be" and, as a consequence, what will have to be will be. Is it possible, therefore, to enter a new relativity, where contradiction no longer exists as the controlling element of the mechanism of life? Is it possible to enter positivity as a new, constant, and coherent system? Is such a degree of change possible? The answer cannot be other than affirmative. Meanwhile, in order to comprehend how the multiplicity of logics may be conceivable, one needs to start from a "first essence", namely from that "simple substance" which guarantees its movement, and one needs to prove that such a "motory essence" works through a wide range of systems, or that several "first logical essences" exist. In respect of this issue, although he stated that the "distinctive sign" of such a "motory essence" was "difference", Hegel subsequently proceeded with linking it to the auto-negation process. What is argued here, on the other hand, is the possibility, or even necessity, of separating that first essence from its exclusive link with contradiction, so that out of difference will also arise complementarity, giving harmony to asymmetry. Just as - analogically - diversity between the electric charges in the atom does not represent a "state of conflict", as much as one of conservation of difference. In the light of this, it is not surprising if, on the whole, each atom presents itself as "electrically neutral". Now, it is exactly through analysing a phenomenological perception that it will be possible to "prove" the existence of a Utopian logic.
Let us suppose that each human being has two "bodies": the material one that appears before us, and the immaterial one that surrounds us. The visible body can be defined as a sort of "protective cuirass" which manages and filters the system of interpersonal relationships. In other words, as an ideological armour, born out of social conflict, with a predominantly defensive function. There are, however, certain "fleeting moments" during which relationships are lived in a "pure" manner. And these are extremely exceptional stirring moments, where a deep cohesion with the other takes place as a result of two rather elementary processes:
1) the protective cuirass disappears;
2) energy is released. Nevertheless, "nothing is created" in both cases. The act of "creation" is represented by the "revelation" and "releasing" of something already present within us, as the source of original energy. That energy, moreover, is not generated through, nor does it depend on, contradiction. This can be deduced from the fact that its "revelation" occurs precisely on the moment when all contradictions tend to be annulled. Even mediation is no longer present throughout such a process. Not only because there is no sign of conflictuality, but also because the self-conservation cycle seems to rotate within the essence of every force. Hence, it is as if a synthesis, if it can be referred to as one, occurred "within each sign". From a phenomenological point of view, it is also evident that the state of ecstasy can be reached through a "direct transfer": that is, through moving in a real and immediate way from one relativity to another. And once revealed, this energy always manifests itself in its "pure state", in the sense that its quality and its strength never change sign. Representing "purity in itself", it can hence be defined as the "energy of pure being". Therefore, within the mind there seems to already exist an interactive system capable of exercising a precise "magnetic polarisation" or, more precisely, of orientating the functions of "life's relationships sphere" towards a fixed direction: "the principle of pleasure". Perhaps it is not entirely possible to translate the "energy of pure being" into any of the scientific languages known so far. Nevertheless, it is evident that to its knowledge and liberation are linked the destiny and feasibility of Utopia. Yet, what is the cuirass that keeps it imprisoned made of? One can picture it as a mosaic made of tiny pieces of coloured glass, each representing an "ethical category". So that every chromatic variation produces a change of being within the person. And the colours can alter between a transparent maximum grade, representing the highest emission of energy (which turns into total illumination or ecstasy), and a black minimum grade, representing the case where the energy is completely unable to release itself. The "stripping" process is certainly mentally determined, but it is also due to the need to activate relationships based on use, rather than exchange, value. Such a process, in addition, occurs and may occur within all human beings, given particular conditions. In the light of the above, it is obvious that such conditions are extremely political. The opportunities to enter that state of inebriation are, indeed, almost inexistent to those who live in a sea of contradictions.
This, however, does not mean that a unilateral act is sufficient to determine relationships of a new quality, when the energy appears. If the act is not bilateral, or collective (hence political), the unilateral will-power will exhaust itself becoming a mere inefficient personal donation. In fact, any unidirectional act of open-mindedness (against the background of contradiction) becomes a naive act, exposing its performer to pure and straightforward derision. Any attempt to define such an electromagnetic wave as a source of divinity, or even to identify it with "the divinity", would also be completely arbitrary. In order to better specify the terms of the "phenomenological test" it may be appropriate to follow other itineraries (those linked with Eastern religions in particular) which appear to reach similar results. Yet those paths run in the direction of purely individual ecstasy. At this stage, anyway, what interests us the most is to show that there "is" a source of the positive, that it already "exists", that it is an integral part of the new logical system and that, through accumulating a great complex and diversified quantity of it, it is possible to directly reach the social quality of Utopia. Hegel's (extra-logical) negativity can, therefore, be overcome, which suggests that perhaps it is not that extra-logical after all. This has led, on an intuitive level, to a first definition of the Utopian logic as "logical relativity of the positive". As a sort of conceptual parallelism, referring back to the process connected to the speed of light according to Einstein's theory could be useful, in terms of the further clarification of its co-ordinates. It is not, of course, an attempt to hypothesise a mechanical relationship between Utopia and physics, but rather a case of establishing a strong analogy between the theory of relativity, which has opened new scientific areas, and the Utopian logic, which could support the birth of new social configurations. Hence, as in the natural sphere the phenomena of relativity are determined when the conditions approach the "speed of light", so in the human world social phenomena more or less close to the utopian positive dimension occur when the "social speed" approaches the limit-dimension (i.e. annulment of contradiction). It is well known that it is impossible to travel faster than light. One needs to go no further than remembering that an infinite strength would be required in order to increase its speed by even only one centimetre per second. And just as nothing (in the granular nature of this universe) can surpass that limit, nothing in human logic can go beyond Utopia.
The limit of the speed of light corresponds, therefore, to the maximum possible happiness, yet not to a super-human condition. Christian religion has, on the other hand, brought the limit of the finite (universal love) close to infinity itself (God). The idea of utopia has, hence, been associated with that of unreachable infinity, while God, reduced to human value, has suffered a real loss of absolute power. Nevertheless, though being the most sublime of values, love cannot but present itself as a human peculiarity. For which reason (even) God cannot be synonymous with it. It needs to be acknowledged that through the God-love identity humans have received an injunction to love. But it is also true that that verb has been deprived of the characteristic of pleasure. It is, therefore, a question of discovering another concept of love, which is compatible with the new logic. Once such a discovery is accomplished, a great part of the Utopian executive project will be released (and will almost blossom).
A re-examination of the first Western thinkers' answers to the questions on Being, Good, and Truth, would reveal, in its limpid clarity, the sense of powerful intuitions such as Socrates' "know yourself" and Agostino's "in interiore homine habitat veritas" (i.e. "the truth lives within men") Yet, at that time, those words were divorced from real things, as if hanging in mid-air.

Today, on the other hand, it is possible to assert that a reason (the logic of the positive) truly lives within man's mind, and can light his way and be a guide to him on the path of building happiness on Earth. After millenniums of speculative anxiety, and after "no one has reached their own self", the current "philosophers of the Self" have concluded that there is no "thing" to find or build "inside" ourselves, so that "if the interior has to be a place, the I is an empty place". Although they have subsequently attenuated their nihilism by stating that this "is not equivalent to affirming that the act of looking in that direction is futile". Yet, if nature "reveals itself at each step as a universal knowledge", why should such a knowledge stop on the threshold of the "world of animals and things"? Why on earth should such an "intelligent nature" become unable to provide humans with a new logic, which is compatible with the highest expression of their ethics? The truth is that these philosophers, bloodless followers of a great tradition, could never find the barycentre of Being, as they are not tuned in with the pulsating heart of our time: the need for Utopia. However, no longer is anything surrounded by the mists of myth, as a tendency towards spirituality is palpable. It is time, therefore, to let celestiality become an everyday practice. A cosmos is about to burst open above the old cosmos. And it certainly will not be the last cosmos accessible to man.

§ V. Utopia and religions

S
peaking of God has almost always been problematic for those who have placed themselves within a revolutionary perspective. Yet, the political opposition to religions has led to a refusal of the transcendent, hence producing a spirituality and sensitivity far inferior to religious ones. It is as if, observing the roofless San Galgano Abbey, one was only struck by the clouds crossing the sky or by the geometry of the stars. However, it is less a case of solving the eternal doubt on God (which possibly belongs to the secret of death), than of proving that the religious ethics is neither the absolute "theory" nor the highest statement in life.

It is evident that the need to elaborate a theory, according to a pyramidal model with the concept of divinity at the apex, to explain the process of the establishment of the universe, of nature and of human beings, has played an important role in the invention of religion. The metaphysical principles and the consequent socio-political architecture have subsequently been fixed upon such a vertical descent. The human ethics has, therefore, been built on the imposition of a religious "must be", rather than according to the norms of a rational cohabitation. Yet it was perhaps necessary during that first phase, in order to impose and make people accept more advanced social rules, to accredit the existence of a supernatural world which went beyond the partiality and finiteness of man. The human species has, therefore, been able to distance itself from its primitive roots, firmly anchored to instinctuality, in order to approach a first system of mediated social relationships. If religions have been able to coexist with the evolution of societies it is because societies have revolved around their cornerstones, and not vice versa. Remaining faithful to a sententious language and to the great theme of eternal salvation, they have spoken, and still speak, of politics "more thoroughly" than any of today's ideologies could. In these terms, religions are more political through their moral philosophy than political parties are through their alliances and strategies. This also explains why, unlike States and governments, religions survive scandals and corruption, as well as wars, schisms, and even the crudest of faults. They often, in fact, blame their own flaws on the incorrect application of the principles, so that the need for an analysis of their own structural contradictions is overpowered by the invocation for a "return to the origins". Yet, not even the most severe of deviations has ever modified the foundation of their moral philosophy, which has substantially remained in line with their founders' essential message. However, although it is possible to unmask their frauds, and finding "only one" imperfection is enough to exclude the possibility of religions' divine origins, the demonstration of their antinomies is, alone, insufficient. The need for reassurance will, indeed, continue to breathe the metaphysical air of prayer, since that practice is so well established that it appears to be impermeable by any criticism. In these terms (this) God has not yet died, and the discovery of the road to happiness on earth will not necessarily lead to the death of the Absolute as an idea.

If Dr. Christ saw in poverty the instrument for human liberation, it is partly because he could not conceive wealth as a positive value. Indeed, in pre-industrial societies the masses lived such an indigent life that not even an equal distribution of all the existing wealth would have significantly improved it. As a consequence, for millenniums, misery was adopted as the natural condition. Moreover, as the production of a large quantity of goods, and even more their mass-distribution, were beyond the imaginable (i.e. utopian), even ideologies were imprisoned by poverty. This is why the tendency towards a society of the "lesser evil" (the Christian proposal) was the maximum one could aspire to. Indeed, not only has Dr. Christ (dogmatically) supposed that poverty could not be eliminated, he has even indicated it as a value. The truth is (and "truth" is the appropriate word) that Jesus, though in good faith, has merely deceived the poor with false hopes of reaching the highest rungs. By ordering them to remain poor, and therefore to remain on the lowest rung, he has done no more than confirming, whether consciously or not, that the class ladder is the only possible measurement in human history. Indeed, Christians have never been forbidden the ownership of slaves, while slaves have been ordered to love their master. It was not until the eighteenth century that, with the emergence of liberal thought, slavery was truly questioned, and that was not thanks to Christianity, which (on this matter) followed the steps of Plato's and Aristotle's thought. Although, that was not an accidental "oversight". It is all too clear that happiness cannot be obtained while there is poverty or class difference, while it can only in a context of "sound wealth". Wealth being sound when it is simultaneously rich in material and spiritual goods. Yet, the "wealth attributed to poverty" reflects a state of exterior desolation which cannot but become interior too, to the point of coinciding with unhappiness.

An aspiration to "sound wealth", representing the premise to any utopian project, is nevertheless absent within Christianity, which reduces itself to the management of the pauperistic organisation of the needy. Today, on the other hand, a desire for the "greater good" (which is the central utopian idea) can emerge, as it is finally possible to imagine a society which goes, in terms of development, beyond capitalism. Although the latter has earned the historical merit of having provided the "technical" demonstration as to how it is possible to multiply "bread and wine" in a laic manner, through the industrial revolution, and hence to beat the poverty dogma. "Blessed are the poor", the Gospel reads. "Blessed are you who hunger, [...] Woe to you who are full, [...] Woe to you who laugh now, [...]", it continues. Yet, would there not be more beatitude if everyone lived in materially comfortable conditions and rich in loving spirit? One of Dr. Christ's strategic limits is, indeed, that the rocket of his liberation can never truly manage to take off, chained as it is to the land by the "poverty obligation" and by love of a sacrificial kind. Which has turned into an "act of sorrow" (the love of Our Lady of Sorrow), that falsely claims to be the greatest of all loves. At this stage, it is evident that toil and anguish are deeply rooted in the Christian promise. Hence, the love of Christ cannot but be mediocre, as so is the form of life He has imagined. Strangely enough, Jesus, who has postulated love as the omnipresent verb, has, in fact, left the omnipotent force of desire, the only one capable of making humans burn with love, out of his proposal. Indeed, to make up for the absence of a "sound wealth" and a "sound love", an insurmountable abyss has been interposed between the human world's unfeasible happiness and that exclusively guarded in the heavens. Yet, regardless of the above, any claim that Christianity does not include a demand for utopia would be false. The idea of Heaven itself proves this. But that demand has been impeded by the religious commandment, which has turned the need for human love into the need for love of God. Hence, as religion has made the demand for utopian paradise external to the real world, eluding the original Eden project from the space and time of life, only a few indecipherable fragments of utopian nature remain in the Christian message. In this way, although love exists, it cannot be seen or touched, and it is certainly not likely to descend upon us.

Prayer, in these terms, represents the most extraordinary (psychological) invention among the ways of communication between man and God, as it allows us not only to establish a dialogue with the divinity, but also to take "possession" of his love. Indeed, prayer can be compared with a phone call that does not require an answer. Or even better, assuming that God is listening, every issue can become the object of self-questioning. If the lever of prayer is within the imagined God, then its power is only within the believer, that is within his/her interior monologue. Its ritual form of expression is, indeed, an integral and substantial part of its psychological content. Moreover, the dialogue "in absentia" (in absence) has an incomparable evocative and suggestive power. Nevertheless, if on one hand the possibility of laic prayer representing a form of spiritual concentration is not to be excluded, on the other it is all too evident that the religious prayer responds to altogether different needs. In the face of death or the necessity to alleviate suffering, it almost always represents the last option. The strength of its suggestiveness not only soothes, but also provides an imaginary support, strong and evanescent, unstable and authoritative at the same time, and hence more "solid" than any concrete or rational support. Prayer, hence, contains all the strength of the need and all the weakness of its postponed fulfilment. It alleviates, nevertheless, the distance and the contradiction between supposed reality and lived reality or, in other words, between love and non-love, and it presents itself as the main therapeutic instrument to free oneself from evil, the undefined (extra-logical) entity which dominates every human landscape as a "natural" presence.
"Ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis..." (I absolve you from your sins).

The above quotation (which appropriately illustrates the logic of Christianity) is fully related to the idea of good as "subtraction of the negative". Instead of representing an encouragement to light the soul with desire, the command is, indeed, "not to do" what "must not be done". Therefore, that of freeing oneself from evil, just as from sin, becomes an operation that takes away, but does not give anything back. Precisely because it presupposes an unmodifiable future, such an operation foresees, with mathematical certainty, a recurrence of sin after forgiveness, so that man is both obliged and free to continuously do wrong. The "sin" is, therefore, not used as an element of social analysis capable of indicating a different system of relationships that may break the compulsion to repeat. The reflection that is triggered off concludes itself completely within the subject, once and for all. For which reason the entire mechanism is comparable to the itinerary of a train that always returns to the same stations. Moreover, analysing the nature of the sin would be equivalent to examining the conditions that determine it, and this would inevitably lead to the questioning of the entire social architecture. The "imagined god", on the other hand, does not contemplate the possibility of different paths and, above all, has no interest in human emancipation. Hence, in the meantime, having arrogated all the love to himself, that god authorises the flagrance of offence. Therefore, the incurability of sin, rather than the transgression of rules, becomes the only real eternal rule, since no active commandments of "positive doing" have been indicated in addition to the passive ones of "not to do".

A theory that claims to be truly "divine" will, hence, not so much have to indicate the mediation of contradictions, as need to accomplish their definitive suppression. Thereupon, with the falling of the conditions of their own establishment, the prohibitions-commandments will no longer have reason to exist. Hence, it will no longer be the commandments of "not to do", but the rules of happiness. This is the real, never previously revealed, prophecy! Still, creating a new sociality is very difficult, far more difficult than inventing a religion; far more difficult than inventing God. One may claim that the concept of God and that of communist utopia are equivalent, since no one has, so far, ever known either of them. Nevertheless, a god has been invented and it will always be possible to invent one, since no one will ever be able to prove his non-existence. Creating Utopia, on the other hand, means subjecting its validity to permanent examination. This is one of the reasons for which designing Utopia will be far more complicated than inventing God. Yet, when it is accomplished, we will enter a wider concept of the current idea of divinity.
If someone is, however, thinking of bringing the research on Infinity to an end, they may as well end their own activity of thought altogether.

§ VI. Utopia and "communist history"

M
arxist methodology, although essential to the dismantlement of the idea of capitalist society's "natural" foundations, cannot be used as a conceptual reference by whoever is trying to imagine the "rules" of a completely new society. The shape of that communism was, indeed, born out of a mere overturning of bourgeois society, and the experiences derived from it produced nothing but an upside-down capitalism.
It has to be remembered, however, that Marx spoke of communism as the "qualitative wealth of free human needs". Yet, the mystifying interpretation that has produced the so-called real socialism has, in fact, generated something completely different. If this is true, however, it is also true that the degeneration has occurred because the contradictions that were consequently historicised were already present in that first embryo of communist theory. Indeed, it is not possible to build, on the grounds of one theory, a history of a completely opposite nature. The question of the failed criticism of a failed realisation of the communist project by who was supposed to be its warrantor, at any rate, remains unanswered. In other words, it cannot be explained why the labouring class itself has not produced the slightest criticism of the contradictions of that history within which it was (also) a protagonist. After all, it is still possible, within an authoritarian regime, to organise a resistance and, therefore, a political opposition. Yet, neither resistance nor opposition have emerged from the proletariat, only silence, which in political terms is equivalent to consent. No such thing as the "ideological subject" or "revolutionary class"! As a confirmation of this, feminism was not born out of the "revolutionary and proletarian" women of real socialism. Yet, the class struggle between women and men precedes the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In this respect, there can only be one reason. However much they may be practically interested in improving their own condition, the proletarian masses, women as well as men, do not express, being masses, the need for a form of life that approaches the sphere of Utopia.

Although so far no proposal has been able to fully grasp the demand for "positive desires", it nevertheless needs to be stressed that there is a substantial difference between the responsibility of theories that have intentionally focused on the "paradisiac seduction of happiness" and that of those which have merely used the masses as an "inertial force". Excited by the declaration that the Antichrist was resident in the Papal court, Luther's farmer followers, for instance, immediately believed that along the tracks of a religious reform was the answer to their own desires for social justice. However, those 95 theses were exclusively conceived as an expression of theological polemics, and only inappropriately they had assumed a political value. In that case, therefore, there was no obligation, on the part of the monk from Wittenberg, to defend the subordinate classes or to provide them with a precise project for social liberation. Luther was indeed able to reply to the masses (through addressing the "Masters") using the same words of the Roman Church: "Treat your own subjects humanly, so that they will respect their masters' laws". The responsibilities of "communist history" are, on the other hand, far more serious. Communism has indeed, since its birth, declared its wish to wave the flag of liberation. It has, therefore, betrayed its own principles. The end of that story now seems to remove the very idea of utopian hope. Yet, that experience was certainly not the one that held the strings of Utopia. On the contrary, the capitulation of that "evil empire" may represent the ideal condition for the birth of an authentic Project, especially as that "major burden" no longer weighs upon the idea of Utopia itself.

§ VII. On the future of capitalism

W
ith the advent of modern technology, supply has become almost unlimitedly increasable. This has determined an interest, on the part of capital, to increase the demand, which has up to this point been restrained, in both quantitative and qualitative terms, by the masses' limited purchasing power. But even this is, now, no longer sufficient. Any product, at the beginning of the industrial revolution, aimed to satisfy a primary necessity more than to be a novelty. Currently, as the primary need is more or less fulfilled, there are attempts to produce goods which are totally new; which are, in other words, able to present themselves as "purchase necessities". It is as if a kind of poverty of the wealthy has been determined; where "everyone" has "everything", but no one has what they really desire. Current tendencies towards globalisation have, moreover, inverted the route of the previous decades. The underdeveloped areas are beginning to no longer be functional to profits, since poverty does not buy or consume anything. For which reason capitalism will attempt, in the immediate future, to favour the abolishment of poverty (or, in other words, to increase the percentage of rich areas in the less industrialised countries), since only in this way it will be able to create a truly wide global market. Indeed, if the bourgeoisie has adopted the flag of pacifism, it is because only a "peaceful" society can absorb a growing range and quantity of new products. It is obvious that this type of (opportunistic) peace will only be maintained as long as business will keep the need for it alive; otherwise, every interest to keep it will cease. Indeed, it is foreseeable that if a new generation of products capable of reviving sales does not arise soon, a rational necessity for war will be put forward in order to reactivate demand. Hence, this recent humanitarian and anti militaristic mask will fall too!

Yet, what does capitalism bear for us in the distant future? What will its new scenarios be? The compass needle surely moves towards the end of the Age of Labour, and that event will coincide with the creation of "Technological Beings", that is of "artificial subjects" capable of substituting men on every stage of the labouring process. The innovatory element of such machines will be their complete "autonomy", in terms of their ability to increase their learning, to "give birth" to other machines and to perform a variety of operations: from design to construction, and from distribution to recycling. With the emergence of such Beings, paralleled by the exhaustion of the necessity to work, the current political and cultural structure will also dissolve, since not only the organisation of material needs, but also great part of the ideological conception of society has been built around work. As far as the current economic asset is concerned, there could be catastrophic consequences since, with the exhaustion of work, the criteria that determines the value of goods would also become redundant. Moreover, with the breaking of the mechanism according to which money is produced, the functioning of capitalism may inevitably collapse. Nevertheless, we must be careful not to fall into a fatalistic wait for the collapse of the "system", or to expect the shift towards Utopia to be automatic. Above all, because the new ways of capitalism can be "infinite", and secondly because there is nothing to suggest that such new scenarios would bear the conditions for the quality of life required by Utopia. The Technological Beings could, in fact, also develop within a regime based on the private property of the means of production, and they could even create new forms of social oppression, which are compatible with the suppression of currency.

§ VIII. Antagonism and revolution

T
he dream of those eighteenth-century thinkers who imagined an open and free model of capitalism is perhaps coming true. Free, as it tends to eliminate all the obstacles to the purchase of property. Open, because whoever expresses a high productivity has access to the top of the social pyramid. In any case, by continuously modifying the productive position, the mobile architecture of current society has even made the shape of the working class loose its stability. Nevertheless, these are not the only reasons for which the Marxist model of revolutionary class has entered a state of crisis. In reality, although nobody has ever dreamed of claiming that the working class is revolutionary regardless of its political choice, this consideration has been allowed to flow like water on marble. After all, no subordinate class is ever revolutionary at birth. Indeed, more than having an antagonistic role towards its exploiters, the working class conforms with the needs of the class that has given it life.
Its "first political nature" is, therefore, immersed into this "usefulness" which characterises it as a social entity lacking logical and ideological autonomy. Marxism has attempted to make up for the structural ambiguity of the proletariat by claiming that "communism's theoretical positions are not based on ideas or principles invented or discovered by a new theory, they are rather the general expression of the concrete relationships of an existing class struggle". Yet, how can mother-history generate "communism's theoretical positions", when it is itself pregnant with contradictions and when it has never known the dimension of equilibrium required by Utopia? And this is not all. If the act of human birth is in class history, the "development of the objective historical conditions" may trigger off an evolutionary process, but one that is totally internal to class society. The natural outlet of this history, therefore, cannot but be a "liberal Utopia". Hence, the new revolutionary class will not derive from a "historical subject", precisely because, historically, there has been continuation rather than a split; nor will it derive from an economic subject, since the real "subject" within capitalism is the entrepreneur. The other classes are, in fact, nothing but "objects at his service". In order to make a new history possible, it is however not sufficient to create a new "theoretical position". Without the "determining" conditions linked with the exploding of contradictions, the mechanism activated by the Utopian Theory does not, alone, consent the leap towards a new Era.

The law that moves the subordinate classes is "the third law of motion" transferred onto the ground of social relationships: that is an equal but contrary reaction to the suffered exploitation. In order to enter a new (ideal and material) construction it is necessary, on the other hand, to appeal to a force that has its autonomous energy. And such a force cannot but be the tendency towards Utopia. Marx claimed that "no longer owning anything to safeguard", and not having specific goals, the proletariat cannot but have general finalities. For these reasons, the proletarians will abolish "the private securities and guarantees that have so far existed [...] in order to change their own and others' conditions". Yet, "owning nothing" does not necessarily mean wanting "everyone's property". Nor does the lack of "specific finalities" necessarily lead to the pursuit of general goals. In other words, the overturning of the "denied needs" does not automatically produce a demand for Utopia. After all, how can "nothingness" represent a proposal for a different "fullness"? The idea that once the proletariat is set against the bourgeoisie it will want the erection of a new model of society inclined towards communism is, indeed, unfounded. Indisputable proof of this is the failure, due to a poor idealistic drive, of many would-be revolutionary movements. In reality, the working class has been extrapolated as a revolutionary class on the basis of the category of work, that is, of the relationships of production in a class society. The category of work, however, is not an ideological category (i.e. a "theoretical position"). A "relationship of mechanical derivation" between subordinate work and utopian ideology cannot, therefore, be assumed. A great part of the workers' struggles have, indeed, been nothing but bitter trade union battles. It is not surprising if, after the conflict, the working class has almost always settled back into its role of subordinate class. Nevertheless, it is not our intention to empty the political wealth of the working class of all its meaning and importance, since such a class has the merit of having not only defended the spaces of democracy within and outside the factory, but also opened the horizon of capitalism and, more generally, of traditional culture. Nor is this an attempt to deny that there has ever been accordance between opposition to capital and demand for communism. It is simply an attempt to correct the mistake of those who have elevated the proletariat to the altar as a revolutionary class by definition. In order to detect the forces that are genuinely interested in Utopia it is therefore necessary to place the Marxist logic side by side with the logic of the positive, and to attribute to each one the limits of its competence. Hence, while class analysis consents us to establish the "interval" of the anti-capitalist forces, the Utopian logic will in turn allow the emergence of the individuals who truly personify the utopian needs.
Although, the possibility of those revolutionary subjects belonging to even historically bourgeois classes must not be excluded. Hence, although the new Utopian class may find a fertile ground among the anti-bourgeois classes, it will not in any way maintain the shape of traditional revolutionary aggregations. It will, indeed, tend to establish itself as a "class of mind", rather than as a class of labour. The mind will, hence, assume the shape of the incarnation of the new logic itself, of the new needs and of the strategic choice to live in the dimension of "use value", that is, to live with fullness in time.

§ IX. Women as a class and non-class

M
an won the first class conflict, by establishing his "dictatorship over women". However much we may refuse to group all men into a single stereotypical category, it is, nevertheless, neither simplistic nor ideological to speak of a dominant male class opposed to a dominated female class. Yet, in the historical woman-man relationship, relations and mediations have always been intertwined in a totally irregular manner. Women have, in other words, simultaneously been lovers and subordinates; loved and oppressed. First of all, woman has been obliged to invent a "loving cohabitation with conflictuality", which, indeed, could not avoid moulding her behaviour profoundly. To the point that, although she is the living antithesis of man, she has not historically positioned herself as his antagonist. Therefore, it is not surprising that female logic begins from the "arousal of desire", which is the exact overturning of the mechanism of reaction, i.e. every contradiction is, rather than rejected, not only absorbed, but also revived, by women, and returned to the male as an act of love. Women have, indeed, the prerogative of forgiveness, while men have that of "letting" themselves be forgiven. Therefore, man does not redeem himself, as his offences are corrected by the loving compassion of who has suffered them. Precisely as if the fine was paid by the victim of the offence, rather than by who has committed it. In this way, if on one hand man is the performer of contradiction, on the other he is a spectator to the synthesis, which is exclusively operated by the woman. A circuit which is certainly autonomous, but which acts as the under-dialectics of masculine logic.
Women have, in short, necessarily preferred a submissive "peace" to conflict, and such an attitude has probably enabled the establishment of a "unity with dissension". Still, by turning the other cheek to man, women themselves have proved that, however loved, an enemy does not turn into a loving subject. That act of merciful compassion may alleviate the conflicts, but only in the dimension of congealment rather than mutation of the relationship. For this reason, that feminine gift does not and cannot free the energies of authentic love. It is not surprising, therefore, if once the armistice pause has ended the same contradictions reappear. The price paid for their role as social mediators has, nevertheless, been extremely high. A significant part of it being the, almost total, exclusion from many fields of human experience and knowledge, from literature and science to politics and art. Yet, even within their "political exile", women have had an important historical opportunity: that of regenerating the ethical code of humanity through the education of their offspring. This opportunity too has, however, to a great extent been wasted, since, in the majority of cases, mothers have preferred to endorse male culture, in the nurturing of both their sons and daughters.

In the last few decades, the entire picture of the woman-man relationship appears to have changed to a large extent. Ever since the "shift towards feminism", female subordination has, indeed, seemed to belong to a long-gone tradition. At this stage, it needs to be mentioned that contemporary capitalism is helping women to play a role of protagonists within society, and that the "business firm" is proving to be an effective political training ground. The employment sphere has even allowed the opening of areas of extra-sexual communication between men and women, whereas in the, still recent, past every encounter was marked by an almost exclusively erotic interest. It is hence possible to witness the shaping of different types of feminine behaviour: those largely attached to "women's historicised logic", within the family, and those assimilated by masculine logic, at work. Yet, although this tendency towards emancipation may lead women towards serious denaturalisation problems, it still needs to be seen as positive.
The "first condition" of mutation is, indeed, mutation itself. Since only after woman's repudiation of her archaic tolerance will humanity be able to open new roads, including the one leading to Utopia. Although it is only a forecast, there will probably be more women capable of committing themselves to a project for the radical transformation of life than men, precisely because women are less accustomed than men to the practice of power abuse. Whereas the working class, although being an oppressed class, still remains, in the majority of cases, a male-dominated, and hence more inclined towards oppression, class. Nevertheless, a project that claims to be sufficiently utopian cannot be generated by just men or just women. Therefore, the "masculine question", meant as the split within male ethicality, will have to be examined as soon as possible.

§ X. Christ and women

D
r. Christ has drawn from "women's historicised logic" the main pillar of his divine point of view. Has that, seemingly revolutionary, inducement to turn the other cheek not been taken straight out of female everyday practice? Moreover, how could one not recognise, within this feminine complete availability, the neutral, with interclass inclinations, and screenless, element of Christian love? Still, no one before Him had ever attributed a "political value" to women's behaviour to the point of drawing from it a social logic and theory. Yet, Dr. Christ has never addressed women.
On the contrary, man is at the centre of his project, as the main reference to human self-representation. In any case, although society has remained under "male" domination, with the advent of Christianity it has become "feminine" in terms of its ethical and spiritual proposal. Women have, in other words, found in Christ the male voice of their logic. And through an operation of powerful sublimation, similar to the one that reverses the force of desire in the form of representation, He has strengthened even further their subordinate role. The fact that the Church has subsequently initiated the process of glorification of Mary, to the point of attributing to her specific redemption tasks and of proclaiming her "Mater Ecclesiae" (Mother of the Church), does not at all imply a recognition in Jesus' mother of the behavioural model and its own ideological source. Deifying her has merely meant turning an "ordinary woman" into an "extraordinary woman", so to confirm the ethics of tolerance on the grounds of man's unquestionable pre-eminence. After all, every time men have, through the dream of poetry, attempted to propose the highest model of society based on love, they have always ended up positioning women as the most exemplary point of reference within that dream. Yet, while poets have usually found inspiration in the loved woman, Christ, on the other hand, has assumed the mother as a model. And the difference is all but marginal. The lover is, indeed, the woman desired "all to oneself", the unchaste naked nymph; the mother, on the contrary, is an "objective" figure, covered with chastity, incarnation of an almost universal concept of creation and devotion. And there is also another aspect. From the feminine viewpoint of the mother, Dr. Christ is incarnated as a social subject rather than a son, so to be able to encapsulate women's point of view as mothers as well as wives, while being male at the same time. Through a process of identification, He has therefore succeeded in interpreting the female universe, which no one had ever rationalised before. With the idea of universal brotherhood, Christ has nevertheless elaborated an idealistic utopia, based on the naive belief that the power of love would be sufficient, as a pure voluntary act, for the realisation of a correct system of human relationships. Yet, a brotherhood that does not foresee totally positive and autonomous subjects is not a brotherhood at all. It is merely a false love, or even a truce during class conflict, subsequently paid, by those who accept to live in mercifulness, with the price of the cross. A cross that corresponds precisely to the suffering that is imposed everyday on women.

Here, also becomes clear the reason for which Christianity has never questioned slavery. There has been no "oversight" after all. As "slaves to men" as well as "slaves to love", women seemed to demonstrate that, within that behavioural model, slavery did not prevent the "love for one another". Yet, it was indeed the constraint of their imprisonment to determine, within women, the logical structure of their ethics: the love of "blissful suffering".
So, why did Christ lie? It is obvious that, had Jesus declared to have drawn the inspiration for his theory from women, his message would not have had the impact it has had in history.
Only a similar explanation can justify his omission. Nevertheless, it is not our intention to open a second trial. Besides, the deification of women's historicised logic may have been useful (twenty centuries ago) in reducing the bellicose character of humanity, since those tales on men and God have played a far superior educative role to any other form or proposal of rational thought. Yet, the restraint of that mediation has today become harmful, as well as useless, as such notions of "unity of opposites" and "loving the enemy" are precisely what prevents the release of energies towards authentic love.

§ XI. Political disengagement and ideological engagement

T
here are dates in history (such as 1492, 1789, 1917) that mark important changes. Among these is 1968, although it divorces itself from the others for having merely produced a long, magmatic, mind-sweeping, mass reflection. Every theory, and every ideology, whether religious or laic, was questioned; every issue was re-examined, with a degree of depth and participation that has no historical equal. It was as if those explorers had attempted to patrol new territories with the only certainty of not wishing to go back to the starting point. Nevertheless, the journey never reached a destination, as no place was capable of welcoming their political demand.
Yet, although that experience came to an end, its reverberation is still alive. In part because the marks of such a particular adventure are indelible, but above all because the longing with which its drive was fuelled still remains insuppressible. With an almost religious enthusiasm, yet with an absolutely laic mind, people began to believe, in 1968, in the existence of different dimensions of life (certainly not ones that were hidden underground or in the sky), where relationships between persons could be regulated by mechanisms that were completely different to those up to then employed.
The principle of untouchability was abolished, and the wall of metaphysics, i.e. the wall that prevents the invasion of real history by needs, was climbed over. Furthermore, the distance separating humanity from the idea of God was suppressed, in an attempt to create a happy society. However, that event did not lead to the dismantlement of any society. On the contrary, capitalism has found the ability to appropriate those "revolutionary" contents that did not endanger society's class divisions or the private ownership of the means of production. After all, no formulation of a new project had paralleled the criticisms of the existing ones and the explosion of the new needs. Of course, not all the survivors of that experience are today bearers of revolutionary ideals, since many of them have lost the strength to believe. This is not only because they have had to surrender to contingent necessities, but also because (in the best of cases) they have reached, after wiping out the most radical part of those needs, a reformist vision of society. Those who, on the other hand, have been able to maintain that political demand intact have preferred a solitary life to the pursuit of false dreams. Nonetheless, there is no point in crystallising one's political life into an image-memory of those youthful years if it is finally possible to pass the enthusiasm on to the new generation. Then, if it is the case that only a generational revolution could favour mass adherence to the utopian project, it is precisely because old ethical constraints that are settled within the depth of minds are opposed to such conception. To think that the only subjects who are interested in researching on the Utopian Society belong to the 1968 generation would, however, be a mistake.

Yet, how would such a new type of political engagement work? The image of the "Utopian researcher" is, first of all, characterised by a disengagement towards current political affairs. Not so much because the "real revolutionary party" does not exist, but because the "connection" that used to link strategy with tactics has failed. Hence, it is not a matter of questioning the validity of the everyday opposition battle, but rather of neatly distinguishing between its defensive (substantially unionist) role and the process of construction of Utopia. Moreover, we must abandon that opportunistic design that brought different classes together, with "instrumental convergences", or flaunted the bond of "class solidarity" in order to subsequently attempt transformative operations. Neither the idea of a "left-wing government" nor that of those who have adopted TNT as their political line can find any support here. It is clear that, as the Marxist logic and strategy have been abandoned, and as there no longer is a Mount Sinai where one can read or listen to more laic tablets, the "writing of New Texts" will have a priority role in all of the first phase of the new political activism. Nothing is, indeed, more important than inventing and writing the Utopian Manifesto: the only one that can propose a new strategy for a commencement, without which any political act would be an end in itself. It is true, of course, that disengagement from the current political scene often leads to the stagnation of reflection and kills the interest in alternatives to the present system. There is, however, no point in activating the trigger of political movements only as an attempt to once again rake up the fire of ideology. Nor should one underestimate the risk of remaining trapped within a "monastery of research", with the consequence of finding oneself, once out of the intellectual enclosure, in a world modified to such an extent that it would not even guarantee a minimum level of democracy.
"Marginal" goals will, therefore, be individuated, providing it is maintained, with the maximum clarity, that they have no direct relationship with the Utopian Project. In this respect, one can mention the international control of births (but not of life, as some actually mean), the safeguard of the most elementary democratic liberties (as those concerning expression and association), union support in work relationships (so not to be crushed by economic inequalities), and the fight against pollution. During the preliminary phase, therefore, the militant's life will probably not yet be subject to a proper "split". Between the diurnal activity, based on work and hence on economic exchange (of both things and people), and the nocturnal one, devoted to the collective Utopian Project.
Those who, instead, thought of unifying the "two lives" through a single political style, would find it hard to survive during the "day" and would hence have less planning energy to save up for the "night". Nothing of the current "being among others" could ever, even in approximate terms, resemble "being within Utopia", and nothing can eliminate this contradiction. Those who may, naively, attempt to fix it will end up with broken bones. But not only that. Even if their efforts were to be of any use, they would only contribute to the mystifying of the problem's terms. They would only, in other words, feed the false belief that everything can be solved through "individual good will".

§ XII. The anthropological separation

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he Utopian revolutionary class will need to execute a political leap analogous to the bio-evolutionary leap executed by man when he separated himself from other animal species. Yet, on the basis of which "category" will the new revolutionary subjects be defined? Identifying the revolutionary class as a "class of mind" is perhaps the most authentic way of bringing political choice on the same level with the elaboration of the utopian demand. Yet, defining the aggregation of those who embody the new needs as a "class" only makes sense in relation to the dynamic connotations that such a term still holds. At this stage, it needs to be pointed out that the professional category of intellectuals, who think as they are "paid to think" and whose social role is inevitably subordinate to that of the power clusters, does not at all belong to the "class of mind". On the other hand, the new rationality consists of the management of sensitivity, which can be anyone's ability. The quality of the utopian choice rests precisely in that "pure sweetness" (so hard to create). It is the "simplicity" of such rationality that opens the doors of the class of mind even to the bearers of "implicit philosophy", yet not to those who are swollen with information but empty, on the other hand, of utopian tension. It is not so much a question of rejecting specialised knowledge, as of separating the mind's potentials from its professional use.
Those who want to side with the revolutionaries will, first of all, have to repudiate their own class, since only through "betrayal" they will be able to abandon once and for all their historical role as well as the regressive aspects of their tradition. No class model or culture (not even anti-capitalist ones) will, therefore, be able to entirely transmigrate to the Utopian Society, as this would mean running the risk of transferring the virus of the old logic into the new History. Moreover, no one will write a list of members who can, through acquired merits, belong to the new revolutionary population, since such a qualification can only be earned by adhering to the Utopian Project as an act of free and conscious choice. Nor is the intention to follow the road of Manichean separation between the presumed bad and the presumed good. The existing ethical code is, indeed, many light years away from the utopian conception. Those who respect it could maybe aspire to a slightly less shameful world, but could certainly not adhere to a project of total palingenesis.
It is, hence, more appropriate to define the new revolutionary class as a "hidden social coalition", since it will only be revealed when a political line capable of embracing its demand is conceived. This slightly resembles the history of the compass. Although the Greeks and the Romans had sensed the magnetic property of magnets, they had not in fact realised that the needle always pointed towards the same direction. It will, therefore, be Utopia's cardinal points to magnetise the potential revolutionaries. Individuals will abandon their families and classes of origin, in order to unite as a new anthropologically homogeneous (but certainly not monolithic) aggregation, which will qualify as a proper new race. Although, the use of such a term must not be misunderstood. It is only useful to clarify, in emblematic terms, the significance and value of the break we want to propose. The "superiority" and "purity" of the Utopian race do not, in the slightest way, imply the idea of predominance.
The separation of the human species is born exclusively out of the awareness that only an "ethical and aesthetic distance" can trigger off the first executive phase of the Project. It is, therefore, a politically compulsory act, although we must hope for a subsequent reunion of human kind, whenever the conditions may ripen. What is more, if Utopia is identified with the Society of Love, it is certainly not possible to imagine that everyone could be part of it, since not everyone is syntonised to this ethical and political frequency. It is, therefore, necessary to propose "racial selection" as a means to separate the potentially harmonic elements from the totally disharmonious ones. It is obvious that when we speak of harmony we intend the "disposition" for harmony, since it would be absurd to expect, here and now, the abolishment of envy, jealousy, and of other negative feelings which have been deep rooted within individuals' minds for so long. Besides, even some religions, including the Christian one, have adopted the criteria of division.
Does heaven not exclude all those who are not considered to be worthy of it? "In his infinite love", the Christian God executes, in substance, a real act of posthumous separation, attaching, moreover, an infinite destiny to an experience of finite life. Furthermore, there is no reason why we must continue to spend our existence in the frustration of mediation, if there is a real opportunity to begin building a world of happy relationships. Indeed, "unity at all costs" expresses that compliance with mediocrity typical of undecided and hopeful individuals. So that Eden assumes the shape of a symbolic overturning of the inability to be.

§ XIII. The territorial division

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he question of "transition" has been of considerable thematic centrality within the Marxist tradition. The Utopian Project, on the other hand, foresees the elaboration of a strategy that would directly result in a completed society. In these terms, territorial space emerges as one of the essential pre-conditions for its realisation. Hence, the political geography of the Planet will have to be subjected to an epochal mutation, in terms of its international division between social models.
So that Utopia will be able to establish, independently from the capitalist society, its "garden of delights". Building "walls" at this precise stage may seem anachronistic. The one in Berlin, nevertheless, to make the most symbolic example, separated nothing but two societies which were substantially homogeneous. As much as it is true that those societies differed due to a greater or lesser extent of state control, a greater or lesser wealth, and a greater or lesser freedom, it is also true that they were both based on the market, on the male-dominated nuclear family, and on class, as well as gender and power divisions. Nevertheless, the division will produce a new internationalism based on "territorial oneness" as well as the abandonment of the classic (and asphyctic) schemes of national transition. Under the vault of state politics any quality project is, indeed, obstructed by the unitary bond that ties the whole population together, more than by a numerical majority.

Yet, only after the unification of an "inter-ethnic population" the whole of the "Utopian international population" will acquire the political right to appropriate the space which is indispensable to them. The territorial claim will, indeed, be strictly "qualitative", in that, there will be no attempt to revive any nation of the past, nor will anyone try, fuelled by Messianic spirit, to return to some promised land. It will be a simple political occupation, with no claim for juridical legitimacy, that also will not arrogate to itself the right to subdue other populations. It is, however, evident that explaining to people that Utopia represents the best possible society will not be sufficient for its sovereignty to be acknowledged on a section of the Earth. Therefore, may whoever is able to propose solutions which would enable us to enter the New Era pacifically, come forward.

§ XIV. The society of demand

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f one was to try to imagine a society with no market, one would encounter an absolute vacuum. Not only because history has so far showed nothing but societies based on exchange, but also because, although Marx's intuitions have "shed the clear light of the sun on the economic field", subsequent research has failed to produce any valid idea for a society that works without currency and, at the same time, gives maximum value to individual demand. Some Christian communities have practiced a "detachment from wealth", on the basis of the privileged connotation attributed to poverty, yet they have not abolished money.
The idea of the charity donation has, in short, no "alternative and global" significance, since that type of community still needs a "second society" from which it can draw resources. Incidentally, here is also reflected the historicised logic of women: with a man (symbolised by the financial society) that hands out the resources for the management of the domestic economy and a community (mothers and children) that benefits from them. At this stage it is necessary, before discussing the merits of the Project, to specify that the Utopian bet will only be a winning one with the invention of an economic circuit capable of satisfying everyone's demand to a "higher degree", not only in respect to what the capitalist system allows, but also in respect to how much the bourgeoisie is able to desire for itself.

It is not insane to suggest that money could be abolished. And that can be proved, for instance, by observing that currency, whether material or abstract, is neither "inside" the substance of products nor within the energy of labour. Therefore, although money is the energetic source that controls production, it in fact merely symbolises a type of mental organisation. The disappearance of currency as a financial means and value does not, nevertheless, imply that the sciences of work and production would also be redundant. In that, even with the fall of the image of the entrepreneur, neither enterprise nor manageriality will be lost. Although, they will not be linked with the need to dominate, but with that of being fulfilled. Such a healthy finality will, hence, be the propellant that will push everyone towards maximum commitment.

Utopia can also be defined as the Society of Demand, precisely because demand, and not supply, is the real starting point of the production process. Indeed, a supply that does not correspond with a demand eventually turns into nothing. While, in the absence of supply, a demand remains merely temporarily frozen, and hence does not cancel itself. Furthermore, as the area of confluence between "supply and demand", the market has only reason to exist as long as no accord is established between the two terms. Nevertheless, the centrality of demand does not represent a novelty exclusively found within Utopia. One needs to look no further than the feudal economy or, referring to capitalism, the contracting institution. The contracts over state services are, indeed, born out of demand, since the order for work is guaranteed, in times of war as well as peace, by the State. It is obvious that when one speaks of demand as the "input" into the product's creation, one runs the risk of evoking the "planning" spectre that has represented the controlling centre of Soviet society. Yet, needless to say, there is not even a remote resemblance between the Society of Demand and that economic system that programmed and planned the "dictatorship over needs", suppressing them to the point of identifying them with the basic necessities.

In order to attempt to obtain a first glimpse of the free acquisition of goods, one may imagine a fridge from which everyone can take freely according to their appetite, without paying and without having to balance their needs against those of other beneficiaries. Yet, if every product has a different production time, how would it be possible to free it from "economic gravity" or, in other words, to eliminate exchange value? If one was to refer to the elements determining the economic calculation of individual goods, it would be impossible to answer this question. In order to abolish "the difference in value" one needs to refer to the overall sum, i.e. to all produced goods, and divide this by the total of all demand. Only when, having produced all the goods on demand, the result of that division is 1, then will all products have the same value. The sum of all labour within Utopia will, therefore, have to satisfy in full the entire social body's demand. So that, if "everybody" can have "everything", money will no longer have reason to exist. It nevertheless needs to be pointed out that "being able to obtain everything" does not coincide with having everything, but rather with the knowledge of being able to have what is desired, within conditions, of course, of "development which is compatible with resources". Yet, while in the past "being able to obtain everything" belonged to the sphere of the impossible, today it is within the potential of capitalism itself. Which, in spite of aiming to satisfy a very large demand, has, nevertheless, the inherent limit of being conditioned on one hand by the "different purchasing ability" of various individuals and on the other by each product's "different ability to produce profit".
This is not only true for goods that have already been produced, but even more for those that have not yet been realised. Indeed, if to a series of needs, representing a demand, does not correspond a supply in the market, it is because the "economic conditions" suitable to determine it are missing. Today, on the other hand, partly due to the emergence of new market research, the distance separating supply from demand has decreased to a considerable extent. It is, in other words, as if supply was "measured at sight". The thinning of the margin between supply and demand does not, even approximately, create the Society of Demand, but it produces a better programming of supply which, "in real time", adjusts production according to sale indexes. How will it, then, be possible, if the cost of production, and hence money, is eliminated, to build houses and means of transport, as well as to produce food and whatever else is needed? It needs to be said, in the meantime, that a "socialisation" process that is not mediated through the market already exists in the current economic system. Indeed, no department or office, within a business firm, pays for the services or goods provided by other internal production units. Nevertheless, this does not imply that if it was possible to establish a Global Capitalist Business, that would automatically mark the beginning of the Society of Demand.

But how would, for example, the production of clothes be organised within the Utopian Society? What is requested will, to begin with, be formed within "creativity workshops". Where, on the basis of the consumer's directions, the stylist will design the model, which will be fruit of the complementary interlacement between demand and inventive abilities. Industry will enter the game at a second stage, when the orders transmitted from the design workshops need to turn into goods. Yet, this does not mean that the manufacture will only be activated after the formulation of a demand, or with the typical slowness of the artisanal method: on the contrary, today the integrated and automated industrial process already allows us not only to produce fast, but also to individualise the products according to each consumer's measure. The "idea" of the dress will therefore enter the machine just like a newspaper the printing press, and the exclusive model will go back to the customer in the shape of use value. Hence, distribution will no longer be identified with sale. The goods will simply be handed out. After which they will become the property of who has demanded them. Since, as a proposal for the exaltation of the individual, Utopia cannot but develop to the highest level of wealth in each private world. Today's shops will, therefore, be abolished and shop windows will be used for the permanent exhibition of all available products. While "advertisement" will no longer aim to promote sales, but to produce a refined taste. As well as to arouse vivifying rather than consumeristic desires. We will, hence, witness the establishment of a proper "observatory of demand", as a centre for research capable of reading its tendencies in order to optimise production, even in terms of an anticipated response to needs.

However, it is necessary to specify another point regarding the moment of production. More important than being the place where goods are made, the large firm, in capitalist society, is also the site for the Studies & Projects Office, which has the function of thinking out, deciding and conceiving new products. As it has been pointed out, the planning site in the Utopian Society will be totally autonomous in respect to the factory, which will only preserve its technical and professional function, while it will be deprived of its power, as the political choice will entirely be dislocated at the demand stage. Therefore, by guaranteeing the maximum flexibility of production, the factory will truly be at the social body's service. Hence, within this new order, the State itself will dissolve.
The rewriting of all social functions here also foresees a different allocation of labouring tasks, which will become more complex with the increasing of one's age: a sliding scale of the jobs that advances along the sliding scale of age. So that everyone can experience, in a stimulating way, all the spheres of work, and no one will ever again feel privileged or excluded. Moreover, this type of organisation will also prevent the reproduction, under false pretences, of society's class divisions. The abolishment of the contraposition between owners of the means of production and wage-earning workers is indeed not sufficient to prevent the remaining of other discriminations: between intellectual and manual work, between simple and complex work, and between directive and executive function. "Security" is, furthermore, also a problem. Today, with the closing down of a firm one generally witnesses the loss of salary, as well as profit. Such a tragedy will not repeat itself in the Utopian Society.
There will be a shift, from the current "economic binomials" (... occupation-salary, salary-purchase, purchase-sale...) to the Utopian "independent trinomial" (demand-work-product) so that, as technological progress will require less human presence, the general reduction of working hours will not result in any form of poverty, but rather in a higher quantity of free time.
This means that the concluding stage of the Age of Work will not coincide with a loss of security: everybody will still be able to have everything. Not being able to provide certainties (i.e. in respect to salary, pension, or even profit), capitalism has, in fact, manipulated and exploited the concept of "security" attributing to it a symbiotic relationship with that of "welfare". It is nevertheless obvious that the lack of security is innate in capitalist society which, de facto, "cannot" afford to protect anyone, bourgeois included.
On the contrary, Utopia is a system built on "security". Which is, far from a revised and corrected edition of government subsidy, the certainty for everyone of having the right to the highest quality of life.

§ XV. The utopian spiritual co-ordinates

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he Utopian spiritual inclination distances itself, radically, from the Christian proposal, which has not favoured the establishment of authentic relationships based on reciprocity. Failing to become "its own goal", love has hence become the "means" to effecting a synthesis of the omnipresent contradiction. And this "subordinate" function has had a considerable impact on its content, as it has denied it not only an exit from the infernal circle of pain, but also free access beyond the boundaries of pleasure.

The responsibility for having obstructed the leap into a new dimension has to be, therefore, in large part attributed to precisely that false love that, in presenting itself as the sole force capable to oppose evil, has eclipsed the need to change the model of society. Yet, while in the Christian proposal love has dissolved into merciful compassion, it has been completely repressed within communist ideology. And that enormous "political error" has emerged out of the failure to understand that existence is made out of matter and energy, and hence the spiritual element is an integral part of material life. Therefore, where there has been love, as in Christianity, it has represented a function depending on contradiction; whereas where (as with communism) it could have finally been free and joyful, it has been rejected. Human history is, at times, so complicated and incomprehensible!

Love is the true political protagonist of the Utopian Society. Yet, it cannot be so, unless it is based on a passionate and bilateral pleasure that makes the outburst of love "convenient", so that the adding up of several bonds may increase the total of general pleasure. The utopian concept of "collective altruism", indeed, presents itself as the joyful interlacement between the individual benefits obtained from the conspiracy of love. Hence, overturning the mythical figure of the saint who, on the other hand, needs a background of violence or affliction in order to become saintly. In other words, it is a matter of transforming both altruism, by freeing it from the connotations of free unreciprocated donation, and egotism, by removing its aspect of grim private appropriation, negligent of the other's pleasure. The co-ordinates on which the new and unpredictable Utopian contents will be introduced will, therefore, be the acute perception of one's needs and the awareness that the condition to fulfil them is a world where everyone can fully fulfil their own. So that the thrill of pleasure may unleash the carousel of feelings, and the orgy of joy may instigate the irrepressibility of desires.

Changing the technical mechanism of society is, nevertheless, not sufficient to allow, as if by magic, all women and all men to live with each other in a loving spirituality. Besides, capitalism may, in future, assume a shape similar to that of the Utopian Society. Hence, the quality of the love will be the only criterion to enable us to grasp its difference. However, even within the Utopian Society it is possible for a degree of contrast to arise. What would happen if, for instance, faced with a case of dishonesty, and after a serious attempt to rescue the situation, we were compelled to take action on the definitive degeneration of an individual? With the abolishment of detention as well as other coercive measures, the only possible precaution would be that of expelling the cancerous subject.
Hence, the practice of the "travel order" will become necessary, mainly for the safeguard of those who populate the utopian lands. Seen as the absence of love can certainly not coexist with wisdom and happiness. May these incurable diseased go to live with other diseased, and may Utopia welcome only the "excited fanatics" of love!

§ XVI. The mobility of the couple

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n order to set out the new terms of couple relationships, it is necessary to break love up into independent segments, from the "purely physical" to the "purely mental" one, and to subsequently arrange them in a circle. This implies that whenever the condition of "positive pleasure" is consensually fulfilled, each segment can be adopted as one sphere of love, autonomous and defined in its integrity.

Hence, with the decline of the immobility of relationships, the doors to the mobility of the couple can be opened. Which, however, must be considered as a codified possibility for the development of several, profitable, love affairs, so that each person would receive a large amount of pleasure, rather than as a mere shift from faithfulness to loyalty. Hence, mobility will present itself as a sort of romantic "competitiveness" which will encourage everyone to carry out a search for the maximum level of passion. Indeed, rather than being considered as an antagonist, the "rival" will be admired as a high human figure worth emulating. Besides, this race to the vital effervescence of love should determine both the growth of one's loving capability and the strengthening of the bond with the loved persons.

Today, a similar argument is, obviously, impossible to put into practice, just as it is at times awkward to accept. Especially from the point of view of the defenders of the family, or of who wants women to be immobile and men mobile. But the Utopian anthropological frontier can perhaps be best represented by the mythical figure of the androgyne, that is, by the development, both in men and women, of sensitivity and rationality, warm-heartedness and planning skills. Avoiding, nevertheless, the development of the Apollonian unrestrainability of virility in men, and the allusive and mysterious charm of femininity in women. Therefore, in the Utopian Society, it will be a case of moving from the "sacredness of marriage" to the "sacredness of love". Hence, overturning the viewpoint of the Christian commandments, which considers certain "acts of love" to be real "offences of love". Let us, for instance, refer to the seventh commandment, that prohibits "the desire for one's neighbour's wife". Indeed, the prohibition only makes sense in a society where women are considered to be "men's private property", as well as "desireless" creatures. Hence, the man that takes "someone else's woman" jeopardises the safeguard pact between men, which puts a veto on the free desire of love. After all, the current liberalisation of the "temptation of love" is a false solution, not only because it does not in any way challenge the principle of the private property of people, but also because it often merely substitutes the monogamous relationship with a multiplicity of inauthentic relationships.

Yet, how can the mobility of love be harmonised with the necessity of guaranteeing a profound loving relationship between parents and their children? For now, this question, like many others, remains unanswered. It is, nevertheless, evident that the separation between parents and their offspring must be excluded, since the screen between "sacredness of the family" and "sacredness of love" is not represented by the difference between a "private property family" and an imaginary "public property family", but rather by a mechanism that guarantees a free loving bond between its members. Nor is it possible to suggest a "collective management" of children, as their psychological strength is mainly developed through individualised relationships, that also include the various stages of caring. However, we must disintegrate that relationship of transmission that results in children growing and developing into cultural copies of their parents. Indeed, the current increasing demand for professionalism seems to exclude only the job of parents, which is often heavily linked to traditional notions. Perhaps the reason for this strange archaism lies in the fear that a scientifically based pedagogy may disrupt that chain of cultural connections that favours the maintenance of a class-based society.
The issue of development, therefore, needs to be also addressed in terms of its professional specificity and within its autonomous sphere. It is, nevertheless, extremely difficult to speak of the science of education, especially if this is intended as the ultimate instrument for a higher form of politics. First of all, psychoanalysis and psychoeducation will have to, at least as corrective approaches, be abolished. Instead, the Utopian child will be presented with a "positive code": a model that will indicate "what to do and how to do it", rather than "what must not be done". A code based on a concept of the "sacred" that deifies the fullness of life. This does not mean that there will no longer be behavioural deviance, but rather that it will be possible to intervene as soon as a slight loss of track occurs. And this will allow the error to be cured before it becomes a character wound or disorder. Because an error that is promptly overcome is an error that leaves no traces behind!

§ XVII. The immoveables infrastructure

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n the territorial space of Utopia all old buildings will have to be demolished. Not only because they would be inadequate to the new forms social life will assume, but also because the adjustment to the pre-existent architectural structures would eventually result in preventing the Utopian model from fully expressing its seductive force. Hence, let us imagine the new residential site as a sort of "ten-star holiday resort".
Let us, however, not think of the shapes, the volumes and colours of the current real estate bodies, nor of a mere transposition of tourist villages into an urban context since, even once the compulsion of work has been abolished, family roles would, in such complexes, remain substantially unchanged. In the "utopian holiday resort", on the other hand, the figure of the housewife will disappear, and domestic administration will be taken care of by service agencies. The kitchen environment will, therefore, function as a cooking workshop only when desired. While the "joyful ceremony of food" will usually take place within refined environments, where the variety and high quality of dishes will be combined with a gathered and regenerating atmosphere, similar to that typical of a cloister's interior.
One will, therefore, move from the intimate dimension of the family meal to a joyful social rituality. Naturally, all the other environments will also be redesigned. The bedroom, for instance, is currently reserved for both the biological function of sleep-rest, and the hedonistic one of love. Yet, two differently organised spaces could be created for these two functions. The "loving hall" will, hence, be an environment arranged for the fulfilment of eroticism. So that the separation between the horizontal stillness of rest and the multiformity of the sexual relationship will enrich, with added value, each specific expression of love.

The complex of immoveables will be shaped so not to obstruct the fluidity, nor the efficiency, of the entire organisation. The construction of localised communities (in the shape of small aggregations) or of anonymous masses (in the shape of large barrack-like buildings) will therefore be avoided. Indeed, the Utopian City would not tolerate being divided into community blocks. Any subdivision into closed groups would result in the corrosion of the quality of relationships, as it would inevitably trigger off interactive mechanisms so strict and repetitive that they would appear to be unmodifiable. Moreover, this is not an attempt to revive the concept of "commune", since socialism is here intended as a service structure and spiritual dimension, rather than a "forced association". But the real "home" for the utopian individual will be represented by the social space of the City, which will resemble a multi-activity centre open twenty-four hours a day. Perhaps this background could even suggest the most spontaneous way to abandon the technical emotivity of television and to enter, instead, a warm, intense, and direct sensitivity. Hence, zapping will mean going to the various places of the city, in order to participate, both as creators and as table companions, in the banquet of creativity. Those spaces will be where the "real wealth of social need" is accomplished, since free time, and no longer working time, will be where individuals find the fullness of their existence. In the new hotel's architecture, a separate space for children also needs to be included, where they will emancipate themselves from the privatised bond of the family, and they will relate to their parents through an articulated system for social encounters. A true "city of joy" will hence be built for children, where playing will be practiced as learning and learning as playing, and where the first friendship experiences will arise and develop, in the shape of circular relationships that will favour the anthropological shift towards non-exclusive love.
The use of cars will also have to be abolished in the Utopian City. If not for other reasons, because it is possible, within a limited territory, to adopt a different circulation-transfer system which would abolish as much the problem of parking as that of pollution. Such a system will run on electricity and it will bring all points of the city together, so that journeys may be personalised and waiting times abolished. Each vehicle will, indeed, move automatically and continuously (even when there are no passengers) along the circuit, searching for new reservations or, alternatively, positioning itself by the stopping areas that are nearest to the wave of foreseen or indicated demand. The task of shaping the new immoveables housing will not be assigned to the "organic architects" alone, since the question of style is also substantially political and, hence, not exclusive to any professional role. It is not a coincidence if the grandeur and imposingness of ancient architectural works, whether sacred or secular, was born out of the ability of some exponents of past dominant classes to combine a refined taste with an immense will of power. We must, therefore, return to operating within that type of grandeur, nevertheless inventing a festiveness capable of enclosing rather than dominating. Also capable of surpassing both the form and content of monumental art, abolishing any angularity, and strictly making use of concave curves to contain the space, and convex curves to penetrate it. In the splendour of its colours and decorations, such an art of enclosure will have to manifest itself in every aspect of reality, from the most complex to the most banal of objects, so that the whole environment may become a real "garden of delights".

Adding to the above that the foreseen demolition plans will not concern the art of previous eras (including high architecture) or archaeology should be superfluous. Indeed, preserving it with care will be one of the most highly "religious" tasks of the utopian generations. Yet, the contact with the past will also have the "vital" strength of a challenge. Since Utopian art will have to find a dimension that goes beyond even the most refined sublimations of tragedy.

§ XVIII. On the utopian democracy

R
ecent history seems to have suggested that without a Parliament the sovereignty of the people cannot be exercised and without the Parties there can be no political freedom, but only totalitarianism, whether right or left wing. Yet, the "laws" of history cannot, fortunately, prevent anyone from conceiving a form of democracy that, being more advanced than the bourgeois one, would abolish any form of delegation.
Hence, it is really a matter of being able to plan a mechanism that would enable everyone, every day, to propose, discuss, choose and vote, so that the entire population may constitute the parliament. Avoiding, nevertheless, turning it into a non-conclusive assembly that would result in the preference, in functional terms, of the most "disciplined" of delegation systems. It will, hence, be necessary to shape the operative system of such a mechanism so to make it into an efficient instrument for participation, avoiding at the same time turning, under false pretences, the management of such an organisation into a centre for political power. Among the instruments for confrontation, television and the use of the multi-screen in particular can have an important role. Each house will, therefore, have to be provided with a "parliament room", which will make use of parallel interactive circuits. At a more advanced phase and with a stronger interclass culture, capitalist society could easily adhere to the tele-democratic system, by substituting today's parliamentary majorities with mass majorities. Yet, the dominant class has still an interest in leaving the management of the greatest national business, i.e. the State Budget, in the hands of a personnel that is highly experienced in the art of the manipulation of consent.

The revolutionary aspect of the utopian democracy lies, therefore, not so much in the technical innovation (i.e. the remote control of vote) as in the assigning of the power to decide on every issue to every individual. The "electronic democracy" will, nevertheless represent only one stage of direct democracy, since the real political confrontation will always have to originate from the "street". In addition, a multiplying number of "ideological lounges" will be established to represent the most important structures for the elaboration of ideas. And a dialectic that is no longer tied to business management and, hence, is no longer forced to resort to the tricks that have currently the role of hiding the naked truth about power relationships behind the sophisms of politics will develop within those sites. In the Utopian Society the debate will be so wide and transparent that it will incessantly oscillate in "all directions". Hence, it will not even slightly resemble a simple multiple-party situation, let alone the "monolithic" nature of one party. Moreover, just as all the current political forces operate within Capitalist ideology, so the freedom and pluralism of Utopia could not be conceivable outside the Society of Demand, the nationalisation of the means of production, and the conflicting harmony of love's new spirituality.

It will, however, be necessary, during the phase of transition to the New Society, to establish a Utopian Party, since without its river-bed the water of revolution may never flow into the sea of History. After which event, such a party would automatically dissolve. In this respect, however, a couple of points need to be clarified. First of all, that the "transition phase" is only conceivable within this current society. Secondly, that a healthy plan may be formulated (since political form and strategy are not dividable), a new structure that, among other things, would render the "avant-garde/masses" problem obsolete. The style of the new Party, which will probably be formed by a "mass secretariat", will hence prefigure a first orchestra rehearsal of the future democracy.
Even if the history of transition will obviously differ profoundly from the History of Utopia. When the time is mature, the date and hour for the new actors to begin the new show of History will be decided, in public, and in daylight.

§ XIX. For the utopian library

W
eaving the plot for the Utopian Society will be an extremely heavy task. Harder than hoeing the ground. It certainly will not be the product of the idea (however ingenious this may be) of a single thinker. Because Utopia is the most radical reversal of course of all human history, and hence is not a mere variation of an existing system, but above all because it implies a rewriting of the entire social encyclopaedia.
It is therefore necessary to organise a network for collective research represented by several sites for political elaboration, that would make use of interactive instruments with specific purposes in order to guarantee to everyone who is part of the Project the maximum possible level of co-operation and confrontation. And only when everything has assumed a clearer shape will the button of revolution be ready to be pressed. Yet, it will not be like Lenin's "spark", since that image refers more to pyromaniac firemen than it does to "builders" specialised in social engineering.

The research, naturally, includes neither teachers nor students; neither "wise old people" nor "naive young people", but rather an international group of thinkers engaged in the designing of the Utopian Society, who will develop or reject, cut or reassemble all the indications that are posed on the discussion table. Yet, it will not necessarily be a case of everyone working as a "team", since original ideas are often the product of internal concentration, which always requires a certain degree of isolation. Neither the cultural gods nor, indeed, the party militants, including those from the "left", will be allowed among the rows of researchers. Repentance is nevertheless allowed, although not as act of confession, but of reflection.
After all, are there any non-repentant individuals around? Firstly, the Library's "shelves", i.e. the inventory and the classification of research themes, will need to be built. Hence the capitulation of issues, each with its titles and indices, which will subsequently be filled in a systematic and thorough way, will be defined. But it will not be possible for all of the work to proceed according to a rigid preliminary general hypothesis, since the operation also allows for the possibility of completely unexpected "drifts". A new answer will have to be given to each question, while non-answers will have to be "frozen", without however falling into the habit of schematisation which, on the other hand, would no longer be able to use the unspoken as its justification, since nothing will ever be taken for granted again. Each edited text will hence reflect the level of growth of the research, yet without the academic obligation to mediate the divergent positions or to offer a synthesis of what has been produced on the issue.

Real life experimentations of proper "Utopian Islands" are also recognised as an integral part of the research. Although the distinctive nature of the semantic fields of the words "island" and "Utopia" may lead to the erroneous conclusion that it is our intention to enclose Utopia within an island. The Island has, therefore, strictly the value of a "laboratory test" and the role of an experimental building yard. In other words, it needs to be considered as one of the many possible instruments of verification, regardless of the risks of approximation or even of the stretching apart of the microscopic and macroscopic dimensions.

Cybernetics can be another instrument. And, in particular, the new frontier of virtual reality, which simulates imaginary places and situations. Of course, we will need to be cautious when approaching these moments, without however assuming an arrogant attitude towards their partiality or banality. Indeed, the more instruments we have access to, the easier it will be to improve the Project and to ensure its realisation is perceivable. Utopia will not, nevertheless, represent the large scale copy of the preliminary experimentations, nor the pure and simple application of the texts that will fill the Library. The theory-praxis relationship will also need to be re-invented, seen as there will be nothing the history of the new Society can compare itself to. This limit is, nevertheless, also a great advantage, since it frees the pioneers of the New Era from the suffocating weight of traditional knowledge.

§ XX. On the research method

T
he research method for the rational invention of the Utopian Society is fundamentally divided into two points. The first is represented by the political choice of realising "the maximum possible material and spiritual wealth for all and each person". The second one is based on the elaboration of detailed projects that give the great fresco shape and colour.
Naturally, such projects will need to be not only free of internal contradictions, but also compatible with the general model. Moreover, while still having to fit within the Utopian totality, each matter has to be approached in its specificity, so that all that tradition has so far kept tied together will be desegregated.
A simple example being the case of the love-marriage-sex triad, whose conceptual interdependence is merely one of the many "unproved truths" that consolidate our civilisation. Indeed, the intention is to assemble an "upside-down prophecy", which starting from the future announces the realisation, the sooner the better, of a history in its own image and likeness. It is, nevertheless, evident that such a deductive approach requires that each abstraction is verified, that everything is explained in terms of "how it works", and that each product of the mind is examined in terms of its concrete feasibility.

§ XXI. The utopian joint-stock company

S
o be it; Utopia will be born out of the establishment of a "Utopian Joint-Stock Company", that is, a company that will finance the projects. Passion and intelligence are, indeed, not sufficient for the creation of ideas.
They also need to be financed, so an organisation that operates according to the "business" criteria of maximum efficiency, as in the research industry, needs to be established, since the project is, in fact, based on research. Indeed, the most important type of research. Even better it would be if the legal base of the "Utopian Joint-Stock Company" was established in a sort of "fiscal paradise", better if the majority of its numbers was formed by a "political package", and better if the financial and real estate wealth, belonging to those who intend to grant the personal "accumulation" achieved through capitalism to a collective account, were also transferred into such a joint-stock company.
The Utopian joint-stock company is, in any case, conceived as a society of research with a fixed time. Meaning that, the year in which the revolutionary Party will be founded will be the year of its breaking up.

§ XXII. The year to come

T
o an author, the year to come represents the second part of a novel, a collection of poems, or an essay. A second part that generally corresponds with the scenery of sales and critiques, not to mention the longed-for literary prizes.
I am neither a novelist, nor a poet, and even less an essayist. The strength and weakness of this text are exclusively fruit of the moral tension present within myself, and of the mental passion that incites me to find an answer to those political questions that I put to myself every day, which represent to me the new ideal frontier for humanity. Years ago, when I first "decided" to reflect over Utopia, I did not know which direction to take. Everything was just magma. And nothing came out in a flow. But pouring that magma into the writing that has subsequently given life and body to this book, which has been reread, re-thought and re-written so many times, has been important. Once I decided to publish this book, I was aware that it would not have been like performing in a theatre show. There everyone claps, especially when a satire against power is represented. Here, on the other hand, there is no applause after the performance. I know that, on the contrary, many will try to extrapolate single sentences out of this piece of writing in order to overturn the meaning of my intentions. The depressed, in particular, will attempt to remove its content with the most common and conventional statement: "... it is only a utopia, anyway". And I would not be surprised if, among the depressed, I came across some of the "orthodox" members of communist ideology. Those who, while railing against the "structural contradictions of capitalism", nevertheless believe it is impossible to realise a society without contradictions. Those who, moreover, even go as far as thinking that life without contradictions would be monotonous. So, what is the revolution they dream of? And why do they dream of revolution?

I am also well aware that what is written here does not represent Utopia's cardinal points. Indeed, I know I have hardly ever succeeded in taking off with a completed form of utopian imaginary, as there still is too much weight on the wings of my ideas: too much anti-capitalism and not enough Utopia; too much contraposition and not enough proposition. In these terms this book is nothing but a an incitement to think. Hence, the year of publication will represent the year the listening will begin. Once out of the clandestinity of solitary thought, I will want to hear whether there is any disposition to reopen the Utopian debate. I sense that, although the current political scenery presents itself as a nauseating gelatinous mass, new ideas are moving under the surface. Therefore, the activation of a fax number will follow the end of this text. In any case, without an executive project, nothing but a new form of class-based society, with new masters to take the ruling sceptre, will arise out of capitalism's ashes. This is why the "new race" is called to an epochal appointment: that of stoking the Utopian torch until the sacred thrill is transmitted to future generations. Now the logic of the positive has "shown" the existence of a universal key with which the doors of a new history can be thrown open, now the elements of this new propellant are available, now, more than ever, it makes sense to desire Utopia. Far be it from me to presume that the next catholic jubilee could represent the last anniversary of Christian ideology. Although,
I do not believe that the coincidence of the birth of the new logic with the advent of the year two-thousand (A.D.) is entirely fortuitous. To the old believers it will perhaps be a sign of the devil, to the new ones it could even be the sign of God's manifestation. To me it is simply the "coagulating of a collective flux", which makes use of the free and rational evolution of women and men on this planet. The only time we need to relate to is, however, that of the universe, since only cosmic events (apart from war or environmental disasters) can radically modify the conditions that allow life to exist. Although on the level of cosmic time, the solar system itself is no longer a constraint to the human species.
Before the Sun will be reduced, in tens of billions of years, to a cold celestial body, it will surely be possible to emigrate to a new Earth, as it was possible for Noah's Ark to emigrate to a new continent in order to avoid the Flood. Meanwhile we could even say "we will meet in Utopia", almost like the Jews did, while for thousands of years they thought of the Promised Land. But if Utopia has been thought of, this means that the contagious fire of that thought could turn into History.

§ XXIII. Epilogue

T
he profits obtained from the copyrights of this book will be paid into the Utopian Joint-Stock Company's account. After twenty years of nothing happening, they will be assigned to a body for the research of (still) incurable diseases.
The author's choice to give up the financial rights does not represent any kind of donation, but rather a dutiful transfer of private capital into a political-collective account. Besides, at least one part of those profits does not belong to him. It belongs to those authors that have or have not been quoted, those who are known and those who are anonymous. Utopia must not be an object on the market, although someone may try to "sell it". And someone may even be under the illusion of "buying it".

Living in a "total city" such as Naples has contributed in helping the author to write this text. Since, on this part of the Earth, strong and weak contradictions, past and present ones, technological development and the primitive are all displayed, as in a window of the excess. This is, moreover, a city where every dimension expresses itself with less covering veils, so that all types of phenomena (material as well as spiritual) are more easily decipherable, in their stern nakedness.

* @ lfa
   Alfredo Alì
    Napoli
    E-mail autore@utopia.it

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Text of the book Preludio alla Società dell’Utopia
Author Alfredo Alì - Naples
Editing & Printing publisher editore@utopia.it
Printed in Italy, anuary 1997 - Internet 11/ 2004
ISBN 88-900133-0-3

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